Group items tagged

When we've got a problem to solve, we don't just use our brains but the rest of our bodies as well, researchers at the University of Wisconsin have determined. The researchers recruited 86 American undergraduates, half of whom were prevented from moving their hands using Velcro gloves that attached to a board. The others were prevented from moving their feet, using Velcro straps attached to another board - but had their hands free. From the other side of an opaque screen, an experimenter asked questions about gears in relation to each other. For example: "If five gears are arranged in a line, and you move the first gear clockwise, what will the final gear do?" The participants solved the problems aloud and were videotaped. The videotapes were analyzed for the number of hand gestures the participants used (hand rotations or "ticking" movements, indicating counting); verbal explanations indicating the subject was visualizing those physical movements; or the use of more abstract mathematical rules, without reference to perceptual-motor processes. The researchers then repeated the experiment and analysis with 111 British adults. The researchers found that the people who were allowed to gesture usually did so, and they also commonly used perceptual-motor strategies in solving the puzzles. The people whose hands were restrained (as well as those who chose not to gesture even when allowed), used abstract, mathematical strategies much more often. Their work will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

How connected consumers feel (or don't feel) to their future selves impacts their spending and savings decisions, researchers at Columbia Business School and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business have determined. The researchers conducted a series of experiments that manipulated the degree to which subjects felt connected to their future selves. When discontinuity with the future self is anticipated, people behave more impatiently - speeding up the consumption of utility (in this case, gift cards) - more than when connectedness to the future self is expected. The researchers asked a group of college seniors - three weeks before graduation - to read a passage that described college graduation either as an event that would prompt a major change in their identities or as an event that would prompt only a relatively trivial change. Compared to students who read the passage describing graduation as a small change, those who read a description of the event as a major change were much more likely to make more impatient choices, choosing to receive a gift certificate worth $120 in the next week rather than wait a year for up to $240. Their work suggests that people can be motivated to hold onto their money, or make more prudent decisions by increasing their sense of connectedness to their future selves, the researchers said. Ref.: Daniel M. Bartels & Oleg Urminsky, On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption, Journal of Consumer Research, 2011; [DOI: 10.1086/658339]

Fats in foods like potato chips and french fries make them nearly irresistible because they trigger natural marijuana-like chemicals in the body called endocannabinoids, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have found. The researchers discovered that when rats tasted something fatty, cells in their upper gut started producing endocannabinoids, while sugars and proteins did not have this effect. How fats create, like, a buzz It starts on the tongue, where fats in food generate a signal that travels first to your brain, and then through a nerve bundle called the vagus to your intestines. There, the signal stimulates the production of endocannabinoids, which initiates a surge in cell signaling that prompts you to totally pig out - probably by initiating the release of digestive chemicals linked to hunger and satiety that compel us to eat more. And that leads to obesity, diabetes and cancer, the researchers said. But they suggest it might be possible to curb this process by obstructing endocannabinoid activity: for example, by using drugs that "clog" cannabinoid receptors. The trick: bypassing the brain to avoid creating anxiety and depression (which happens when endocannabinoid signaling is blocked in the brain). I'm guessing McDonald's won't be adding that drug to their fries. Ref.: Daniele Piomelli, et al., An endocannabinoid signal in the gut controls dietary fat intake, PNAS, 2011; in press

Listen up, Facebook and Twitter groupies: how easily can social pressure affect your memory? Very easily, researchers at the Weizmann Institute and University College London have proved, and they think they even know what part of the brain is responsible. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time. Volunteers watched a documentary film in small groups. Three days later, they returned to the lab individually to take a memory test, answering questions about the film. They were also asked how confident they were in their answers. They were later invited back to the lab to retake the test. This time, the subjects were also given supposed answers of the others in their film-viewing group (along with social-media-style photos) while being scanned in a functional MRI (fMRI) that revealed their brain activity. Is most of what you know false? Planted among these were false answers to questions the volunteers had previously answered correctly and confidently. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time. To determine if their memory of the film had actually undergone a change, the researchers invited the subjects back to the lab later to take the memory test once again, telling them that the answers they had previously been fed were not those of their fellow film watchers, but random computer generations. Some of the responses reverted back to the original, correct ones, but get this: despite finding out the scientists messed with their minds, close to half of their responses remained erroneous, implying that the subjects were relying on false memories implanted in the earlier session. An analysis of the fMRI data showed a strong co-activation and connectivity between two brain areas: the hippocampus and the amygdala. Social reinforcement could act on the amygdala to persuade our brains to replace a strong memory wi

Well, OK, maybe not totally destroying it, just making it unnecessary to rely on friends, libraries, books, notes, and other forms of "transactive memory" (external systems), thanks to the rise of Internet search engines, Wikipedia, and other Internet tools.